By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A good friend who, for a variety of reasons, left the Catholic Church many years ago, once told me that despite this ecclesiastical estrangement, he had…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Angela’s Ashes—Frank McCourt’s 1996 haunting memoir about growing up in Irish poverty, alcoholism, and dysfunction—appalled and enthralled me. The story is poignant and gut-wrenching, but the…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien If it’s true, as some say, that God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world, then the Good Lord must have carved out…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– My grandfather Don O’Brien (1891-1963) was a writer too. For roughly the last decade of his life in the mid-1900s, he wrote a newspaper column several…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The Sonoran Desert—the hottest in North America—is home to sky islands, to thriving agave, palm, and cacti plants, and to the only jaguar population living in…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien During a recent 24-hour period, I prayed at a peaceful monastery, visited a raucous brewery honoring a brothel, and paid money to watch cowboys shoot at…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A rather simple word—love—is at the heart of St. Valentine’s Day. Yet, what’s most clear about the popular February holiday is that it’s complicated, both historically…

By Michael Patrick O-Brien– For winter, here is a cold weather excerpt from Monastery Mornings, my 2021 memoir about growing up at the now-closed Trappist monastery—Abbey of the Holy Trinity—in…

By Jathan Janove (Guest Contributor)– As I reflected on what my 2024 New Year’s resolutions should be, it struck me that I could be donating more money to nonprofits and…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Some fifty years ago I was an altar boy serving Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Ogden. I was a reliable assistant, but prone to…